


Persona 5: Remember the Reaper

by Vitalpen



Category: Persona 3, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-20 08:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vitalpen/pseuds/Vitalpen
Summary: So first post on here.  I love Persona.  Only played 3, 4, and 5, but they're all fantastic, stylish games with some grade A writing and characters.I like the idea of the collective memory that Mementos presents, so I’ve wanted to play with it for a while.  Specifically, the most important event that no one remembers, but our heroes still have to deal with the shockwaves from.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER WARNING: This takes place between Palaces 3 and 4 in Persona 5, and spoils a lot of plot for Persona 3. Ye have been warned.

The halls of Mementos echoed faintly with the sounds of frustration. A high school boy in a dashing outfit had been battling with a lock on a treasure chest for the past fifteen minutes. He’d tried time and time again to line the pins up, but it just wasn’t happening.

“Joker, this is taking forever,” A bleach-blond boy echoed Joker’s own thoughts as he leaned out of the car window.

“I noticed,” Joker replied curtly, losing the pins once again.

“Can’t we just, I don’t know, break it open?” The bleach-blond boy whined.

“Such force would likely only end up damaging whatever was inside,” the other boy in the vehicle replied, polishing a katana.

“Fox is right, Skull. You can’t just brute force everything,” the childish voice with mature words came from the car itself.

“Fiiiiine.”

“Maybe we should continue exploring this floor and come back for it later,” the brunette behind the wheel chimed in. She saw him flinch, having lost his progress once more and continued with a slightly guilty expression. “We should be fine as long as we don’t head down an escalator.”

“No, I’m getting there, I just need a little more time,” Joker reassured, flashing her a grin to allveiate her guilt. In truth he wasn’t quite sure he believed his own words. Given he was the leader, no one persisted, and they passed another few moments in silence.

“Hey, did anyone hear that just now?” A blonde girl with pigtails leaned forward from the back seat, her eyes were flitting around nervously.

The others in the car looked at her in confusion.

“Hear what?” Skull asked, giving her a sideways glance.

“That noise." she whined impatiently. "Just a second ago.”

The driver looked at the blonde girl with a puzzled expression, then shook her head, “I didn’t hear anything.”

The blonde girl turned to the boy with the katana, seeking support. “Fox, what about you?”

The boy with the katana mirrored the driver’s motion. “I can’t say that I did.”

The blonde girl huffed. “Okay, I’m not crazy, I just heard it. Mona?” She looked down at the floor of the car.

“Sorry Panther,” the cat-faced vehicle replied sympathetically, “I only heard wind and Skull’s obnoxious voice. But whatever it is, you don’t need to worry. We should be strong enough to handle any shadows we come across here.”

“Even if we couldn’t,” Joker added, still fiddling with the lock, “Queen’s a pretty good driver, we’ll out run anything we can’t fight.”

“Thank you, Joker.” The driver smiled in reserved gratitude.

Joker got all but the last two pins in line, “Okay, I think I-”

“There it is again!” Panther suddenly cried out, breaking his concentration and losing his progress.

“Wait… nope… never mind,” Joker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, that time I heard it,” Skull confirmed, suddenly upright and tense in his seat.

“Me too,” Mona agreed.

“See, I told you I’m not crazy,” Panther grumbled.

“It’s as Mona said though,” Fox replied, still lax, “no matter how intimidating the sound, anything we find here is likely weaker than us.”

“I’m not so sure.” Queen’s hands tensed a little on the steering wheel. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Finally Joker heard the noise. Chains. Rattling chains. It was short, but the sound carried an eerie gravity to it. It vibrated through the skin and bones, right to the soul. The way it echoed through the tunnels didn’t seem to fade in power. A kind of dread began to creep into his mind.

Clearly everyone else was feeling it to. “Joker, I think we should leave the chest,” Queen called from the window, more than a little urgently.

Joker put his lockpick away, giving one last disdainful look at the box. “Yeah, you’re right.” He turned around. “Let’s head to…”

It had a long black cloak and a pistol aimed at them. He jerked his head to Queen, catching her eye. “MOVE!”

With the reflexes of a cheetah, Queen’s foot hit the pedal. Mona’s wheels squealed in the second it took to catch friction with the ground. The car headed one way, Joker headed the other. He’d just started to lunge forward when the shot came. 

It missed them, but the shockwave from it simply passing by sent both him and the car flying. The bullet struck the chest, completely disintegrating it and whatever was inside. 

By some miracle, Mona land on his tires. Joker wasn’t so lucky. He was sent skipping twice across the ground, only stopped when he hit the wall. As he scrambled back to his feet, he saw their attacker drift across the ground until it was between him and the rest of his team. A burlap sack was tied over its head and a single hole showed its eye, shifting its gaze from him to them and back again. Joker looked past it to Queen and Skull, sitting in the front.

“RUN! NOW!”

After a split second of shock, Skull shook his head vigorously, shouting a protest. Queen on the other hand, looked him solemnly in the eye and nodded. Joker took out his pistol and fired off two shots at the thing. It wasn’t much of a surprise when it didn’t flinch. It clearly directed its attention at him though, which was plenty. With that, Queen gunned Mona’s engines, made a sharp turn, and sped down the track. Skull’s cry of shock echoed back. The shadow heard the movement and looked back, raising one of its pistols. Joker fired on it until he emptied his magazine, bringing its eye back to him.

“That’s right, come and get me,” Joker muttered before turning on his heels and sprint away as fast as he could. The chains began rattling again as it gave chase. The first corner he found, Joker rounded, and not a moment too soon. The shock wave of a bullet nearly missing him was still enough to throw him forward several dozen feet. The inadvertent head start turned out to be an advantage.

Soon as he was back to his feet, he rounded another corner and hid in the darkness, pressing himself against the wall and staying as still as humanly possible with his level of exhaustion. His chest heaved from the combination of terror and physical exertion, but he did his best to quiet his breathing. 

“Where did you come from?” Joker muttered to himself after a moment. It was nothing like the other shadows. This thing had a definite form, it wasn’t a twisted mass with arms and legs. It was closer to the monstrous forms of the palaces' rulers. But Kamoshida, Madarame, and Kaneshiro, they didn’t stack up even close to this thing. The cold, deathly chill that polluted the air around it, it was a feeling unlike anything he’d ever felt.

Now he was stuck here, on foot, with it moving around. He hoped Queen was smart enough to keep the others from trying to find him. If they ran into that thing, it was over, even with all of them together. She, Fox, and Mona were fine, but Panther and Skull were no doubt worried sick. 

It was faster than him and it had a ranged attack that would kill him in one. He was going to have to move smart, but that was only going to draw to this out. There was a reason they drove in Mementos.

“Hello there.” A young voice came from behind him.

Joker whipped around and drew his pistol.

The young boy didn’t flinch. He just smiled. He stood just over half Joker’s height, dressed liked he was fresh out of Igor’s prison. His skin was eerily pale, like he was sick, and he wasn’t wearing and socks or shoes. The kid cocked his head curiously. “Are you lost?”

“Uhhhh,” Joker lowered his gun and stared for a moment.

“Are you?” He asked again, patiently.

“Yeah, kinda,” Joker replied warily, deciding not to put the gun away. Nothing about this child even whispered “normal”. “Listen, kid, you need to get out of here; there was one heck of a monster floating around nearby.”

“You mean the Reaper?” The boy replied knowingly.

Joker stopped and pursed his lips. Yep. Definitely not normal.

“I saw it attack you before. It was a good idea to run from it.”

“Felt like the only idea at the time,” Joker crouched down to the boy’s level. “The Reaper, huh? You seem to know what’s up. Mind sharing?”

The boy only shook his head. “I’m afraid knowing any more than you do now wouldn’t help much. It would also take quite a while, likely more than enough time for it to find us. All you need to know is that it’s far too powerful for you to stand a chance right now.”

“Lucky me, fighting wasn’t the plan,” he cast a nervous look over his shoulder, half expecting it to already be there. “How do I get around it?”

“You can’t here, it’s too fast. That car was your only chance.”

Joker heaved a sigh, but then had a thought. “What do you mean, ‘here’?”

The boy’s smile widened just a little, satisfied that he’d caught on. “In this part of Mementos, it moves faster to traverse the tunnels.”

“So, there’s a part of Mementos where it doesn’t do that?”

In response, the boy turned around and began to walk away. “Follow me.”

Joker turned back for just a moment, debating whether to go with the evil he knew or the one he didn’t. In the end it was the choice between possible death, and certain death. The boy was just disappearing around a corner when he started to follow him.

“Hey, wait up!” He ran to join the kid. But when he turned the corner, he didn’t see him.

He also didn’t see the familiar dank, dark tunnels of Mementos.

“What the hell…” Joker trailed off, looking around. He backed up a few steps to try and take it all in.

But his back quickly touched a wall. It took Joker by surprise and he yelped, spinning around and staring at it. He couldn’t go back.

“Are you kidding me?” He shook his head, smiling to himself at the absurdity of it.

A gurgling growl from deeper in the twisted school ensured him that no, they were not kidding him.

Whoever “they” were.

Once more finding himself a prisoner (seemed to be an ongoing theme lately), Joker turned around to look at his new surroundings. It was very obviously a school, much more well-funded than his. But it was… wrong. Everything had green tinge to it. Blood seemed to leak out of the walls and pool on the floor. His vision even felt a bit messed up by this place; every once in a while, part of his view would distort just slightly.

Nothing about this place felt good and that feeling was only heightened when he realized he was wearing his school uniform.

“What the-!” He looked at his hands in disbelief, not only was he stuck in Mementos with something called “the Reaper” on the loose, but now he didn’t have his thief stuff. But that also meant that while he was here…

“I’m not a threat,” he muttered. What did that mean? What was this place? Who was the kid? What was the Reaper? And most importantly, why was he here?

He didn’t know what to make of any of it. But there was nowhere to go but forward. With a sigh and a shrug, Joker started down the hall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Not entirely sure about the pacing in this one. Never been too confident writing extended sequences where it's just one character and their thoughts. Still, the narrative is taking shape. I've got 2 more of these to move over from tumblr, after that, production is gonna slow down because I've actually gotta start writing them again. Hope you guys enjoy!

Not that Joker was surprised, but it became clear very quickly that this place wasn’t operating on any reasonable kind of architecture. Hallways branched off at random, stopped at dead ends, walls randomly divided rooms, short stairways went up and then right back down, and there was no pattern to any of it. It confirmed he was still in Mementos, but it presented another issue. As he went further and further, a feeling of helplessness set in. There was no sign of actual progress, just walls and windows far as the eye could see (which wasn’t far here), staring out into nothing except the moon, which looked massive. His footsteps echoed off into the dark murk that pervaded the atmosphere. It made it dramatically apparent how alone he was.

At least until he started to hear the breathing.

It echoed through the air around him, making it hard to say where it came from. It belonged to a girl, and it came in labored gasps, like she was exhausted… or scared.

“Hello?” He called out reluctantly, not sure what would answer back. The breaths turned slowly to weeping, and he picked up his pace a little. “Hey! Anybody here?!” The breaths became deeper and deeper, to the point of hyperventilating, like some kind of panic attack. “HEY!” He broke into a run. It was impossible to tell where he was going, how many corners he turned. The surroundings always stayed the same, the breathing never got any closer. He couldn’t say what it was that drove him forward, but there was a desperation pressing down on him. He had to find whoever it was and he had to do it now.

“Takeba, wait!”

The command came out of nowhere, as did the powerful voice of the woman that gave it. Joker flinched and stumbled to a halt, nearly tripping over himself. The moment he was stable, he whipped his head around, scanning the area for the source. Aside from him, the hallway was still empty; he was just as alone now as he was before. And now he was hearing voices. This place was starting to get to him.

Before he’d even fully recovered, a clatter once again jolted him into looking down the hall. Out of the darkness, a glinting shape skipped and slid right past him. It slowed to a stop just a few feet behind.

Joker turned around and looked at the object.

It was a gun, about the size of something he’d use. Slowly, carefully, Joker made his way over to it. He scanned the hallway for even the slightest movement, ready to bolt in a second, before gingerly picking the firearm up and looking it over.

“S. E. E. S.” The letters were inscribed along the side. There was no hammer, nor anywhere to put in a clip. “It’s not any kind of model I’ve seen,” he said to no one, trying to break up the silence. With no more to look at, he promptly held it out ward, aimed down the hall, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

“Don’t know what I was expecting.” There was no reason to get rid of it, and nothing else to hold onto at the moment, he pocketed the gun and looked back the way he'd been walking. A girl, out of breath, having a panic attack. Who was she? Why was she out of breath? Was there even a girl? And who was telling who to wait?

“My name is Mitsuru Kirijo,” the commanding voice came again, as if answering him directly. It sounded like it was right behind him. Joker spun around again as fast as he could, but unsurprisingly, found no one. After letting himself be annoyed at this place for a moment, he took a moment to process the new information.

“Mitsuru Kirijo?” He knew that name, but he couldn’t place it. Hell, he couldn’t place a lot of things right now with this place messing with his head. He was lucky to remember his own name. He’d heard it before, he knew that. As he continued walking, he tried to think of the places that he could have heard it. At school? No. LeBlanc? Maybe. Train? No. TV?

He rounded a corner and stopped dead, losing his train of thought instantly. The hallway in front of him finally had presented a distinguishing landmark. Despite that fact, its appearance wasn’t what one would call “welcoming”. Handprints, jet black ones, covered everything. On the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. For at least ten meters of hallway, nothing but hundreds of handprints all over.

And a boxing glove.

It just sat there, a lone splash of red among the sea of black, defiant.

“Man, Yusuke would love this,” Joker chuckled. Comforting himself with thoughts of his friends, he braved the art piece, and approached the glove. Now that he was closer, he could he see that it was damaged, and pretty badly at that. There were slashes in multiple places, the thing was actually barely holding together. It certainly seemed to mean something, that was obvious. But what?

He tried to call back to the many ramblings on symbolism that Yusuke was prone to. Black meant death, red meant… passion? Anger? Love? Fists were power, though the glove was destroyed.

“You can’t overpower death?” He guessed out loud, but that didn't sound right. He lamented his phone's camera not working in the Metaverse, Yusuke would definitley be able to help with this.

Like so many times already, a new sound brought Joker out of his thoughts. It was a consistent, continuous noise, far too quiet for him to make sense of. It was clearly coming from close by, though. It seemed that was his cue to keep moving. With a last look back to the art piece, he did just that.

As a certain point, he figured out that it was music. But it sounded tinny, distorted. The possibility of this being a trap crossed his mind. Could shadows set traps? The ones in Mementos never had. Actually, now that he thought of it, he hadn’t seen a seen any since he got here, gun-toting or otherwise. He wasn’t sure if that was comforting or not.

The volume of the music increased steadily as he walked. He took a few experimental turns at random, testing to see if anything here really had any spatial consistency. It didn’t matter which way he went, all paths seemed to lead toward it. Even still, it was hard to make out anything about the song from the distortion. It wasn’t much longer before he came to the source. An old MP3 player lied on the floor in the middle of the hall, attached to a pair of head phones.

“Huh,” was all Joker could really say to it. He walked over and picked up the device, holding up one of the speakers to his ear. It was a pop-sounding song, normal vocals mixed in with rap. He looked at the small screen at the artist name. “Lotus Juice?” Never heard of him. After a moment of debate, he pocketed the player, hanging the headphones on his shoulders. Not like anyone else was going to use it, and he appreciated the ability to break the silence.

He headed back for the landmark. If he was going to find anything important, it would probably be there. As he appraoched it, the music cut out abruptly, replaced with the slightest bit of background static. Joker looked at the screen again. It read “4/7: The Fool”. A voice started coming through the speakers.

“April 7th,” the boy on the track started, sounding a little nostalgic, and a little sad. “Not the day it started, but definitely the day it got moving.” Joker stepped back onto the handprints as he listened. “It’s a weird experience, walking off a train in a new town to find nothing but coffins,” the voice gave a wry chuckle. “Even weirder when you arrive at your new dorm and find no one but a little kid wearing prison stripes.”

Prison stripes? Joker looked at the music player like it just slapped him. The kid from before? What the hell was going on here?

“It didn’t seem like a big deal. All I did was sign my name. Not sure if that’s what triggered it, but I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, less than a minute later, someone pulled a gun on me.”

Static took over for just a few seconds, then the track changed. “4/9: The Magician”.

“It was… terrifying. Only two days after I get here and we were attacked by that… thing. Yukari tried to fight back, but she was scared. When I look back on it, we probably still would have died if I was the only thing that awakened. If Akihiko couldn’t stand up to it, what chance did I have? I’d only just gotten my persona.”

Joker stopped walking, his eyes widening.

Other persona users? There were other persona users? He took a second to process the revelation. He supposed it wasn’t impossible; the world was a big place. But the idea that they weren’t the first had never really crossed his mind. He cast a glance down to the MP3 player; if that was anything to go off, they wouldn’t have had smart phones. How did they get to the Metaverse without the app?

“But I guess fate had other plans. Well, I know it did. We ended up with Akihiko injured for nearly two months, but it wasn’t a total loss; the shadow was dead, and they had a new persona user.”

As the monologue ended, the screen flashed a low battery signal three times, then died, once more leaving Joker in silence. He looked at the hallway around him, the slashes on the glove. Clearly there was a story to tell here. Whether he was going to get all of it, only time would tell. For now, all he could do was move on.

Eventually, after an unknown amount of time spent walking, Joker came to a staircase. The sight was an uplifting one; vertical change meant progress. At least, he hoped it did. As he began to climb the stairs, voices drifted in from the ether.

“This is Yukari Takeba,” the voice of Mitsuru Kirijo explained.

“…Hey,” another girl greeted reluctantly. Yukari Takeba, the one who got told to wait, the one who hesitated with the shadow. There was some connective tissue in this narrative, at least.

“I’m Junpei Iori, Nice to meet ya.”

“Nice to meet you too, Junpei, can you tell me where I am?” Joker said, mostly to himself. Naturally, Mr. Iori didn’t respond.

“My name is Shuji Ikutski,” came the voice of a man. “I believe I mentioned him earlier,” it continued, “but this is Akihiko.”

“How ya doin’?” Came the young, but gruff sounding follow-up.

Why was he being introduced to people? Was this their team? Before he could try and think it through, the sound of footsteps besides his quickly appeared and grew in volume. Just as he was turning to look back, someone passed him. He barely got a look at the guy, but the dark hair was the same color as the kid from before. Just behind him was another guy in a baseball cap, and a girl in a pink cardigan.

All three were armed and none of them acknowledged him. They passed by him as if he wasn't there.

“Hey, wait up!” Whether or not it was going to work didn’t really matter, he had to try. When they didn’t respond, he took off, taking the steps two at a time as he tried to catch up. In just a few moments, he hit a landing. He’d reached the top.

Sadly, all it presented was more nightmare school hallways.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it occurred to me that this section is called chapter summary, and that there is an optional section called chapter notes. If it's cool with you guys, I'm just gonna keep using this thingy.
> 
> On that note, I'm down for any feedback, tips, or what have you for this. Specifically when part 4 comes out, the interaction at the beginning of that I've never been totally satisfied with and I'm curious to know what you peeps think.
> 
> Peace, my dudes.

Joker pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Why does everything about this place have to be so cryptic and unhelpful?”

As if in response, a train rushed by the window next to him, blaring its horn as it went. With a yelp that he was glad no one else could hear, he backed up several steps from the window, taking a moment to calm down. Finally, something familiar. Maybe it meant he was close to the end. He kept walking, seeing the cars rush by the windows every once in a while. He was grateful for the noise, however loud it was. It didn’t seem to matter where he went, the train was still there, just outside. He started counting how many times it went by. It was on the fifth counted pass that something caught his eye. He stopped and stared at the window, waiting for it to come again.

When it finally did, he confirmed it. He could see something in the train. Lots of somethings actually. Shapes. On the seventh pass he could see what they were.

Coffins. Dozens of floating coffins.

“Wait a sec…” he muttered to himself, “nothing but coffins.” Was this the scene from The Fool? No, it wasn’t. He’d only mentioned coffins when getting off the train. But then, what was it? On the eighth pass, there was something new. A single figure, barely more than a blur, moving through the car.

The ninth showed two more, trailing a car behind the first.

He could barely make them out just standing there though. The hallway he was in wasn’t long, but it was enough. He stopped at one end, and tensed his body. He waited for the tenth pass to come. As soon as he heard the horn, he took off sprinting. The added time he got running alongside the train was minimal, but it was enough. Baseball Cap, Pink Cardigan, Dark Hair. He was still following the same story.

He kept running for as long as he could, getting a look at what they were carrying, two swords and a bow, before he came to the end of the hall, passing by the corner. There was a moment of breathing heavily, and a mental reminder to thank Ryuji for the track practice. When he stood up, we was faced with his second landmark. Just as unsettling as the first.

Hair.

It seeped in through the windows, cracks in the wall, and came down from the ceiling; endless locks of thick, tangled hair. The strands were either black or white, they covered the floor entirely. As he looked up, Joker noticed something tangled within the thousands of strands hanging down from the ceiling. It was a train; a model train like the kind a kid would play with. It was also an exact replica of the one passing by the window every so often. Lights were visible from inside the little train; Joker contemplated approaching it, seeing if there were little models of the three mystery kids inside, but decided against it. He was having nothing to do with this one.

“Junpei! Wait!” The voice of Yukari Takeba rang in Joker’s ears. He spun around just as a body sprint past him, into the hallway of hair. He caught just the faintest glimpse of a hat. He turned toward the hair again, seeing Baseball Cap, who he could now confirm was Junpei Iori, disappear into the darkness.

He knew it was a sign. Mementos wanted him to go that way. But he’d seen enough horror movies in his life time to recognize a kill spot and he had enough on his plate without adding ghosts.

Clearly, the labyrinth begged to differ, and it did so in such a small, but effective way: somewhere, a ways off but still too close for comfort, there the was the sound of a chain being rattled.

“That’s just not fair,” Joker growled, looking between the direction he’d come from and dark mess in front of him. The chain sounded again, closer this time. The cold dread from earlier started creeping in. That alone was enough to make the hair seem a lot friendlier. There was always the chance that it was just an image, not real, not anything dangerous, but he wasn’t going to take it.

The boy spun and booked it onto the hair, giving one last glance to the train as he passed. Any hope that it might not last that long was quickly killed off. With the lights mostly covered, it was even darker here than out there. He couldn’t see anything more than two inches from his face, including the floor. Luckily, it remained relatively smooth, no bumps or loops to trip him up. When he didn’t hear the chains again, Joker decided to slow down a bit and let himself assess the situation. If that thing was still here, he was still in Mementos. But everything looked different. Even with all the floors he'd been through, there'd never been anything like this. Everything they’d seen here up until now was just train tunnels, albeit it nonsensical ones. Why was this place different? Did Mementos have rules?

There were no answers to be found. A change in the sound of his footsteps made him stop. He’d gone from the _tap_ of tile to the _tink_ of metal. It was still far too dark to see any detail, but the floor had definitely changed. He kept going, and found the hair starting to part, just a little. It gave him enough light to see he was definitely somewhere different.

He was in the train.

The world outside rushed by as the train sped along its track. There was no way it should’ve been going this fast. The coffins weren’t here anymore, he had no idea why. The green sky outside was clear, populated only by the moon, beaming down like a massive spotlight. “Well, I’ve been in weirder,” Joker muttered to himself. There was still no sign of the chains rattling anymore, so he took a second to sit down on a seat and breathe.

How long had he been gone? How long would the others wait? Would they go back? Would they try and come find him? Neither option sounded good. He hoped they were okay.

A small light shining up at him caught Joker’s attention. The MP3 player was on again. “5/9: The Priestess.” He quickly held the headphones up to his ears.

“We were still early on, still newbies. We’d been in Tartarus a few times, gotten a good ways up, but Akihiko was still recovering and Misturu had to stay on the bottom floor to coordinate. So it was just Me, Yukari, and Junpei. Our first mission nearly got us all killed. Junpei’s a good guy, but he was really dumb when we started out. We had a hell of a time playing catch up, but we did it. Good thing too, because he was really outnumbered. I’m probably gonna be saying this a lot, but it was pretty terrifying. The train was out of control and we had 8 minutes to beat the shadow that took it over. Even then, if I hadn’t found the brake… We survived, that’s what mattered. Still, it was a close one.”

As soon as it was over, there was the screeching sound of brakes. The train started to slow, they were approaching a station. When it came to a halt, one of the doors opened. A glance out the window showed another staircase leading up. “Finally,” he breathed a sigh of relief and stood up. The second he stepped past the doors, they slid shut and the train sped off. Joker turned around to watch it go, but found only the hallway… and a boy.

“Hello again.”

The small, frail shape caught him off guard. He took a step back and stared at him for a second.  The reaction only lasted a second or two; Joker had experience with kids being more powerful than they looked and freaking out wasn’t going to get him anywhere. So instead, he breathed and asked, “How’d you get here?”

“I’m always with you…” the boy began, but stopped himself, smiling fading as he put a hand over his mouth pensively. “No, that’s not quite right, is it? We’ve only met today. And yet…” He paced past Joker and over to the stairs, sitting down on the bottom step, looking puzzled

Joker watched him for a moment, comparing him to the dark haired guy he’d been getting glimpses of. Aside from the hair color, there was nothing major, but that was just appearances. When it was clear the kid wouldn’t have a follow up to his thought, he spoke up again, making his way over and sitting down next to the kid. “What is this place?”

The boy looked up at him, then all around them. “This is Mementos, don’t you remember?”

Joker shook his head, unsatisfied. “This is not the Mementos I know.”

The boy nodded, closing his eyes, “I suppose you wouldn’t. After all, Mementos is the collective unconsciousness. Even if those who reside within it forget, _it_ never does.”

“ _What_ isn’t it forgetting?”

The boy opened his eyes and looked into Joker’s. “Do you remember the year 2009?”

Joker stared at him for a few seconds, cocking his head a little. “Bit of an odd question.”

"But a relevant one, nonetheless.”

“Does it have anything to do with what I’ve been seeing?”  Joker guessed the answer, but decided to double-check.

The boy gave a good natured, almost affectionate chuckle. “You’re learning. It was a very important year.”

“Why?” Joker thought back, not quite remembering anything major about it.

“You’re seeing the story bit by bit as you go. About this place, those who traversed it… and about Death.”

The slowing of his speech, the hesitation in his voice, Joker could practically hear the proper noun in “Death”. “Who are you?”

The boy lowered his head once more, “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you yet,” he looked up with an oddly cheerful smile on his face. “But next time, I think the time will be right.” Joker blinked, and the boy was gone. Because of course he was gone. With a sigh, he stood back up and began moving up the stairs.

It wasn’t long before voices started floating through the ether once more. The first was Shuji Ikutski.

“Would you believe me if I said that a day consists of more than 24 hours?”

“If you asked me back in April, I’d say no. Now…” Joker knew he couldn’t hear him, but he didn’t care.

“The Dark Hour – a time period hidden between one day and the next,” Mitsuru Kirijo explained.

The voice of Akihiko joined in. “Normal people don’t realize it, since they’re all sleeping inside their coffins. You saw those creatures, we call them ‘Shadows’.”

Coffins again. Were they saying those were people? Had he been on one of those? “Long story short,” Ikutski continued, “we’re the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad.”

Joker suppressed a laugh. “Heck of a name…" then he stopped walking, "wait a minute.”

Even as he lifted the gun, the voice continued. “SEES for short.” There it was. What the hell was this thing? “On paper, we’re classified as a school club. But in reality, this group is dedicated to defeating the shadows.”

“Defeating the shadows.” Joker’s brow furrowed and he held his chin thoughtfully. “So they’re definitely persona users. But not Phantom Thieves. None of them had masks. So how…” He looked at the gun again. It had their name, was it a weapon? Did it work on the shadows?

“Fuuka Yamagishi… Do you guys know her?” Akihiko spoke from nowhere.

“She gets sick a lot, from what I heard… I don’t see her at school very often,” The disembodied voice of Yukari Takeba replied. So a new member was being added to their team. Unlike the first set, these stairs didn’t have walls. They led off into some murky void all around him. Joker looked off into the abyss outside the staircase, curious if he’d see anything to give him context. All he got was a mix of images that he couldn’t make sense of.

A guy in full kendo gear ran on a school track for a while before falling over and clutching his leg. A kid in a school uniform reached out to an adult woman as she walked away, a box of chocolates behind his back. A teacher in a pink suit set down her chalk and walked over to a computer, opening a beer can and playing a video game. It all just seemed completely random, but everything so far had been connected.

As it turns out, these were no different.

A guy showed up in each of the three scenes. He helped the guy in kendo gear off the ground, comforted the guy with the chocolates, and sat down at a computer across from the teacher, sending her a message in their game. All of them with the same dark hair as the kid in the stripes… and the guy with Junpei and Pink Cardigan.

Suddenly, the scenes started feeling all too familiar, a smile found it's way to Joker's face.

“Hey! Will you guys wait up a second!” The voice of Yukari called from down the stairs. Once again, just as Joker turned to face them, four bodies ran up the stairs towards him. Dark Hair, Junpei, Pink Cardigan (who he could now confirm was Yukari Takeba), and a new guy. Slightly taller than the others, with a red vest adding a bit more color to the party. Something told him this was Akihiko. The last time he followed them got him to the top of the stairs, so he followed suit this time. Before long, he hit the next landing and stopped to take in the new surroundings.

The new floor was very much not the nightmare school anymore. But what it was, he couldn’t really say. Black and purple dominated the color scheme, the walls seemed ribbed, almost like bone, and there was a gigantic human face coming out of one of the them. “Well this is decidedly different," wass the only thing Joker could get out. He’d planned on looking around a bit more, but when his eyes met someone else’s, he stopped.

He didn't know if finding another person in this place should have been calming, but it wasn't.  Boy was it ever not.

Among the dark surroundings, this pale wisp of a man that stood before him stuck out.  It was hard to guess his age with how thin and ghostly he looked.  If he wasn't standing upright and confident, he would've sickly.  Blond hair fell around his head, barely kept in check by the band around his scalp. He wore no shirt, showing off the intricate tattoos on his arms. His shoulders sagged, but not out of exhaustion.  He looked unsettlingly reaxed. His eerie appearance set off plenty of alarm bells on its own, but three factors set off every last warning sign imaginable. The face attached to the body was cold. Its eyes were devoid of pity, fear, or kindness in any form. The smile beneath them did nothing to help. One arm hung at his side, the other rested on the handle of a revolver, tucked into his belt.

They stood there, silently watching each other. A prickling nervousness crept up Joker’s back. Finally, the pale man broke the silence.

“How odd to find someone new in this… faded nostalgia.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aight, so is the one that if you dudes/dudettes reading this could, I would appreciate some feedback on.
> 
> 1) The conversation with Takaya. I'm still not sure if I quite got down his way of speaking, so I'd like a second opinion  
> 2) The chase scene up until we get to the bubble. This took a hilariously long time to make, because I kept feeling like I wasn't actually talking about it enough, you know? It always felt... bare bones, I guess?  
> 3) Opinions on the landmarks so far. You've probably been able to figure out that each is supposed to represent the encounter with the Arcana shadows, I've got the ideas for all the rest pretty mcuh figured out, but I want to know what you guys think about it so far.
> 
> Thanks for the help, peace.

Joker took a reflexive step back.

Apparently, that was the wrong move, because the cold smile only widened. “Oh? A curious reaction. Surely, you know by now, there’s nowhere to run back to.”

Joker had a feeling, but he had to see the wall that had replaced the staircase before he admitted it. He only gave it a half-second glance before gluing his eyes firmly to the pale man. “Who are you?” He demanded, trying not to let the creeping dread into his voice.

“A memory of the dead,” the man replied vaguely, smile seemingly permanent on his face. “A fleeting existence at the edge of the world’s thoughts. Just as everything else here.” He spread his arms out and glanced around, gesturing toward their surroundings. "Except of course,“ his eyes landed back on Joker, "for you.”

“Yeah, and I’m feeling real special,” Joker snarked.

“As you should,” the pale man laughed, “after all, it’s not often one is allowed to experience memories that aren’t theirs.”

“And whose memory are you?”

“Whose indeed,” the man’s smile widened further. "A question you’ve no doubt been asking since you arrived here. Who would remember such odd architecture? These infinite, winding halls?“

"Oh, buddy,” Joker’s hands tightened into fists, “you have no idea how sick I am of people being vague when I ask them questions.” Even standing as threateningly as he could, he couldn't escape how hollow the aggression was when the other guy had a gun.

The pale man didn’t answer. Instead, he took a step forward.

Joker took another step back, hitting the wall.

With clearly defined, punctuated movements, the man wrapped his fingers around the revolver’s handle, and tugged it from the belt. “Would you care to join us? Here in this labyrinthine recollection? Recalled only by a select few?” He pulled the hammer back and steadied his arm. Joker’s heart pounded like a drum, he was stuck at a wall, too far away to have any chance at closing the distance before he shot. All he could do was stare in horror, jaw in a vice grip, as the man’s hand tensed, and it slowly pulled the trigger.

_Click._

He flinched hard and his heart skipped a beat as he prepared for death. But there was no shot.

After a moment, Joker opened his eyes, finding the man still pointing the gun at him. The hammer was no longer pulled back, the trigger had definitely been pulled.

At the sight of his confusion, the pale man chuckled. “Feeling a little skittish?”

Joker’s eyes narrowed and he bluntly replied, “You aimed a gun at me.”

“Are you so afraid of death?”

Joker didn’t answer. He wasn’t playing into this psycho’s game. Instead, he looked at the four way intersection they were in, taking account of every detail that he could of the creepy purple architecture.

There was an odd gurgling growl, identical to the one that he’d heard upon first stepping into this place. He didn’t think the pale man’s smile could get any bigger, but it found a way. “Do you hear them? Man’s folly, crawling to get you.” The gun went back into his belt and he turned around. “You should start running, they’ll be here soon.” In only a couple seconds, he had disappeared into the dark entirely.

What replaced him was a set of glowing dots. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they were eyes. More quickly appeared.  They varied a little in height, but all of them were fairly close to the ground.  For just a brief moment, all they did was stare at him.  Then, the silence was split by a wet slap.  A hand came down on the floor out of the dark. As soon as it found a grip, it began pulling the attached body forward. The creature was a strange, darkly color blob, almost like a moving puddle. Its other hand came forward, gripped the floor, and pulled itself further along. Quickly more hands joined it in the light, revealing more than a dozen other identical creatures.

Strange and alien as they looked, Joker knew a shadow when he saw one.

“Oh crap” Joker muttered. Once again, he stepped back and once again, the wall was there to meet him. "Oh, crap!“ He frantically scanned the area, evaluating the left and right pathways. Without a second thought (or a first one really), he took off sprinting. In response, the shadows heaved themselves forward with disturbing vigor, lunging to head him off. At the last moment, Joker hung a right, barely dodging a swipe aimed at his head.

Then he ran. The heavy impact of each step echoed as he ran through this new, equally unwelcoming environment. Behind him, the shadows desperately hauled after him, reaching out with enraged gurgles. He was only barely faster than them; he was gaining distance, but not nearly fast enough to lose them. The shadows showed no sign of slowing down either. They were going to chase him until they caught him.  It was even more impossible to keep track of where he was in this place than in the school. The abstract gothic patterns around him were entirely foreign, there was no way to figure out where anything was.  Already, his legs ached with fatigue, his arms felt heavier, and his lungs burned. He needed a plan. He needed a weapon. He needed his persona. But none of the above was coming to him. He was lost, on his own, getting tired, and with a horde of shadows stampeding after him.

“Wait, the gun!” Joker pulled out the SEES gun and aimed it backwards, pulling the trigger.

Nothing.

"You know, I guess it’s my fault for hoping!” He yelled at the useless piece of garbage. He started hanging turns whenever he saw them, desperately trying anything he could come up with to lose the shadows. He didn’t even try to keep track of which ones he took, he was plenty lost already, couldn’t get much more.  He didn’t know how long or far he ran, but the next time he had a conscious thought was when a sound caught his attention. Somewhere off in the distance, a motorcycle revved its engine.  “What the…?” Joker couldn’t tell where it came from, but he definitely heard it. Makoto? Much has he didn’t want his friends out here looking for him, Johana splattering these things all over the walls sounded really good right about now. He looked back to check the shadows, still there.

And so was the bike.

It wasn’t Johana, but it clearly didn’t care about the shadows either. It cut right through one, sending bits of black slime flying as it did. Joker hugged the wall, but didn’t stop running. As the bike neared him, he got a better look at the rider. White shirt, black skirt, red armband. That was all he made out before it as passed, heading down the hallway in front of him and turning a corner.

He’d seen that arm band before. Dark hair, Junpei, Yukari, and Akihiko had all been wearing one. “Mitsuru?” He wondered. She was the only one he hadn’t seen yet. Unless that was Fuuka. “No, that was Mitsuru,” he decided. She sounded like the type.  The train of thought couldn’t get much further, the sound of wheels screeching and the bike crashing saw to that. “Uh oh.” Joker forced himself to move just a little faster, heading for the turn the bike had taken.

What he found was only half what he expected. The bike had indeed crashed, pieces of it were scattered across the floor away from the main wreck. But there was no sign of the rider. What there was, was a massive bubble, just sitting in the hallway, spanning nearly the entire width.

Joker couldn’t say what made him choose running into the bubble as his course of action, but that’s what he did. He ran right into it, literally. He passed through the surface with no resistance. With no impact, he ended up stumbling a few steps forward before regaining his balance.  There was a moment of confusion, followed by the terror-filled moment of realizing he’d stopped running, followed by several loud  _thunk_ s behind him. He turned back to look at the shadows, who had all run into the bubble too. But unlike him, they couldn’t get through. Joker stared at them for a moment as they relentlessly charged into the bubble again and again. Finally processing the fact that he was safe, he fell to the ground, panting heavily as he caught his breath. The agony of fatigue took a good couple minutes to subside.

The bubble held against the shadows, for the moment at least. That gave him time to examine the new landmark. It was definitely the motorcycle from before. It was mounted with some weird-looking electrical equipment on the back. He couldn’t tell what any of it did. The bike was totaled, something had hit it hard. There were two crowns stuck into the blown out tires. Joker tried to pull them out, get something sharp to fight with, but they didn’t budge.

A noise caught his attention. Static. Among the equipment, there was a small radio that still seemed to be working. Static was coming through the speakers, cutting for just fractions of a second to let a voice through.

Galvanized, Joker grabbed the radio and frantically started messing with the dial. It took several minutes, but he managed to start making out full words. The voice coming through was Mitsuru Kirijo. There was still way too much static to hear full sentences, but he managed to make out the words “Akihiko” and “Shadows” in the voice of Mitsuru Kirijo.

He grabbed the responder attached to the radio. “Hey, can you hear me? Hello? Mayday, mayday, is anyone there?!” The few seconds of solid static seemed like an eternity with the shadows still knocking at the barrier. He was about to throw the thing to the floor in frustration. But the sound of Mitsuru’s voice stopped him.

“Who **_CRRSH_** this?”

Adrenaline in full swing now, Joker talked as quickly and clearly as he could. “My name is Joker, I’m a persona user like you, but I can’t use my persona here, I’ve got. I need to know how you summon it.”

“Do you **_CRRSH_** evoker **_CRRSH_** gun **_CRRSH_**.”

Gun? Joker looked down at the SEES gun. “What about it? It doesn’t shoot.”

“I need **_CRRSH_** your head **_CRRSH_** trigger.”

For a moment, Joker thought he'd just heard her wrong.  "Run that by me again?"

"Put it  ** _CRRSH_** head and pull the trigger.   ** _CRRSH_** crazy  ** _CRRSH_** only way."

Joker felt a pit form in his stomach. Even in its depleted form, the message was clear. She was telling him to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. Despite the fact that he was fairly sure it wouldn’t fire, something about the idea made him shudder. He cast his eyes down to the nonweapon in his hand. For some reason it felt a little heavier than before, the polish looked a little darker. Maybe it was the prospect of how he was apparently supposed to use it. If this was still Mementos, then there was the chance it would fire, just like the model guns did. But this wasn’t a model gun. Hell, apparently it wasn’t even a gun. And it hadn’t fired before. But then, he’d seen lot of crazy things in the past few months, maybe it only fired when pointed at him. Was Mitsuru telling him to kill himself?

He growled and ran his fingers through his unkempt hair, he was thinking about this way too much.

The sound of a crack behind him drew his attention. He slowly turned around to face the facts. The bubble was starting to break. “Uh-oh,” he said with a deadpan stare. Time was up, he had to decide. It was either use it and possibly kill himself, or not use it and guarantee the shadows would rip him apart. “Well, here goes nothing.” He faced the shadows taking the gun in his right hand. With slow, reluctant movements, he raised it up and placed the barrel against his temple. He breathed in, then out, then in again. The world seemed to slow. His hand tensed, he screwed his eyes shut, and he pulled the trigger.

There was no heat, no pain, no blacking out. But there was the sound of a gunshot right in his ear, along with breaking glass.

_**"Thou art not I, but I am still thine. From the sea of a sleeping soul, I come forth."** _

The feeling that overtook him was different than what he knew. He was used to the pure rush of seemingly boundless power that came with summoning a persona. But this felt… more controlled. He was used to it bursting forth, rather than building up and flowing out. The words he heard in his head just moments before seemed to hit the nail on the head. This wasn’t his power.

At that moment, the shadows broke through the glass, swarming into the orb.  Finally able to get in, they threw themselves forward like starving animals, reaching out to grab and tear him apart. But before they could get any closer, three chords from a harp played behind him. A wave of searing flames flowed forth, enveloping the shadows. They writhed in the heat, quickly burning away into scorch marks on the ground. Just like that, the threat was gone.

Joker stood there for a moment, acclimating to the energy flowing through him. Come to think of it, didn’t even know who he was summoning. He turned around to face the persona and stopped.

He didn’t know this one.

Discovering new personas wasn’t uncommon, but typically he either met them as shadows, or through Caroline and Justine. Yet here he was, looking at a marionette-esque thing with a harp on its back. The only other one that had ever just shown up was Arsene.

And that similarity to now probably meant something.

The static on the radio cut out abruptly, replaced by a hum. Joker looked back at it. The readings on the machines had all lit back up, and all said the same thing: “6/8: The Empress and the Emperor”. A voice started coming out of the speakers, crystal clear, and not Mitsuru Kirijo.

“You know, one of the things that's actually kinda funny in retrospect was just how much went wrong whenever the big shadows showed up. Fuuka was already in Tartarus. She’d been stuck there after some other girls locked her in the school gym at night. Now those other girls were supposedly hearing ghosts and then ending up in the hospital. That meant they were waking up during the dark hour. One of the last ones, Natsuki was her name, we took her to the dorm to keep her safe.  We had no idea what part of Tartarus the gym turned into, so the only way we were going to find her by doing the same thing. So, we broke into school. Well, Junpei unlocked a door at least.”

As Dark Hair spoke, the persona faded away.

“So me, Akihiko, and Junpei head in to find Fuuka, while Mitsuru and Yukari stayed down below. We found Fuuka just fine, but it was right after that that everything just went to hell.” Dark Hair chuckled. “On the way back, Akihiko puts it together than the big shadows come on the night of the full moon. Guess what tonight was?  Mitsuru sends us a broken up transmission that they were under attack and that Natsuki had shown up. Oh yeah, and there were two shadows this time, because apparently they were going easy on us before. We booked it back down there, took out the shadows and got acquainted with Fuuka’s persona. From that point on, she took over for Mitsuru on being the navigator. Which meant Mitsuru was coming with us. Another month and two more shadows down.”

The moment he stopped, the static returned. There was no sign of Mitsuru’s voice either. With the shadows gone, the only thing left to do next was move on. Joker held tightened his grip on the evoker and walked away from the bike, feeling far more confident.

“His name is Orpheus, by the way.”

Joker spun around just as the lights on the radio finally died for good.  No static, no hum, just silence.


End file.
